by Jim Heskett
“I came here the other day. Two days ago, I think. I was with a younger guy.”
“That doesn’t tell me shit.”
“You made me a fake ID.”
He didn’t step back, but at least he took his finger away from the trigger. He stared at me for a few seconds, pushing breath in and out of his nostrils, then lowered the gun. “Water cooler.”
“Right, that’s me. I asked you about water cooling.”
“You looking to buy some computer parts or what?”
I shook my head. “I need a gun.”
Cornrows stepped back, then looked around at the people near him. When they saw he was trying to get their attention, a few of them laughed, and he laughed with them. Like a king holding court, demanding his subjects guffaw at the jester.
“What you think this is,” he said, “Wal-Mart? You think I’m running some kind of sporting goods store here where you can just place your order?”
“There are some people after me. I need protection.”
“No,” he said, and walked back around the coffee table to sit. “Your bullshit is not my problem. I give a fool like you a gun, that’s gonna come back on me.”
I could have pointed out that selling drugs was also likely to come back on him, but all I said was, “please.”
He leaped off the couch again, over the coffee table, and swung the pistol at the side of my head. I saw it coming, and I could have easily dodged it, but I let him hit me. What was I going to do, brawl with every one of the thugs in this room?
The nose of the gun connected with my temple, which exploded in pain. Throbbing, pulsing, explosive pain. At least, it was not the same side of my head where Glenning had kicked me.
I took a step back. A few of Cornrow’s cronies stood and surrounded me. “Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I’ll go now and leave you to your business.”
He raised the pistol to his shoulder. “You got five seconds. Five…”
I spun and raced toward the door as the whole room erupted with laughter. Didn’t look back as I bounced down the stairs, slamming against the screen door. What an idiotic, half-baked, ill-conceived plan, and I’d been lucky to get out of there alive.
I needed to stop letting desperation drive my actions. Next time, I wouldn’t be so lucky. I resolved to put more careful thought into whatever came next.
Outside, I looked up and down Colfax at the cars rolling along the wet streets, the homeless people at the intersections with their ratty jackets and cardboard signs. What the hell was I supposed to do now?
After a check in with Grace, who had been spending her time mostly watching TV and taking Dog for walks around the base of the ski resort, I drove home. Heavy head. Bleary eyes. I had no idea what the next step was.
I parked the car and walked across the driveway, shoulders slumped and head low.
Then when I stuck my key in the front door, I found it unlocked again.
I threw it open, and saw the body of my neighbor Alan, hanging from a noose anchored to the banister at the top of the stairs.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alan’s body swayed a few inches back and forth on the noose, which was connected to the upper banister of my living room stairs. His head had lolled forward, his cheeks blue and puffy. He was wearing only boxer shorts, and I could see a collection of bruises up and down his chest and legs.
I was meant to see the bruises, obviously. To know that he had suffered before they killed him. They wanted to remind me that they could get to anyone, at any time. As if I’d forgotten how they’d already demonstrated that by killing my trainees and making sure I saw their dead bodies.
I rushed to him and almost put my hands on his body, then stepped back. Of course, they wanted me to touch it. To get my DNA on his corpse so they could hide me away in a jail cell somewhere.
A funny thought struck me: a month ago, when IntelliCraft had inserted MBA grad Paul’s corpse in our upstairs bathroom, I’d gone into shock. Been dazed, hyperventilating, had passed out because I couldn’t comprehend the brutality of discovering the body of someone who’d been murdered. Of coming in direct contact with evil. Since then, I’d seen so many bodies that it hardly even fazed me anymore.
But Alan wasn’t an acquaintance like those others. He had been a friend. Maybe this man had kidnapped my wife, but seeing his dead body in my living room stung me more so than Paul, Keisha, and Martin. More than the other dead bodies IntelliCraft had created in my life. More than Omar and Kareem.
And as shocking as it was to find him, it seemed perfectly logical for Alan to end up dead. He knew things about IntelliCraft. He could have talked, and would have talked. Also, he was another pawn they could use against me.
The company’s timing was so incredibly impeccable. I’d gone out for only a couple hours, and they’d raced in here with this body and staged all of this.
But what if IntelliCraft hadn’t done this? What if it was Susan and my dad? Would they do something this horrible to scare me away from my goal of exposing the company? Susan had said they’d do nothing, but how could I believe her?
No, this was IntelliCraft. It was exactly their M.O., but they couldn’t have gotten in and out so easily without help. One of my neighbors had to be spying on me for them.
At that moment, I hit a boiling point. No more death. No more casualties of war. No more deception.
I decided I’d go confront the neighbors, knock on doors and look them all in the eyes until I found the one with the guilty face. Then I’d drag him back to my house and make him look at Alan’s brutalized body, to see what had become of this dopey stoner who’d lived next door.
I stormed outside and walked two doors down, to the house next to Alan’s. Banged on the front door. No response. I waited a few seconds, my blood rumbling, and my pulse rattling like a machine gun. I peeked in his windows, saw a couple lights on, but no motion inside.
I walked to the next house. Slammed my fist against the front door. Didn’t know the name of the guy who lived here, but he almost never shoveled his driveway after it snowed. He always let it devolve into a crunchy, icy mess for days. I’d meant to confront him about that, but couldn’t ever find a time when we were both at home.
“Open up!”
I saw the curtains flicker. “I see you,” I shouted at the windows. “You’re the one who thinks you’re above shoveling. Open up this goddamn door right now!”
“Go away,” said a muffled voice from the other side. “You’re scaring my wife. Please, just go away and leave us alone. We don’t want anything to do with you.”
I jumped from his porch into the front yard, kicking a pile of crusty snow along the way. On to the next house. Banged on the door.
“Somebody is going to fucking answer for this bullshit! Do you understand the lives you’ve wrecked?”
I spun around, and across the street, a little girl was standing in front of a green house with solar panels on the roof. She was holding a ball of snow, one as big as her own head. The basis for a snowman, probably.
The little girl cocked her head and stared at me, this crazy man shouting and kicking snow piles. Later, she’d tell her parents about this, and maybe even have nightmares about the angry man. I’d be the reason her parents would remind her not to talk to strangers.
What the hell was I doing? Before I had a chance to flesh out the thought process any further, a car pulled into the cul de sac.
Detective Cross and his mirrored sunglasses stared back at me.
“Shit,” I said with an incredulous laugh. “This is perfect. Just perfect. Why would he show up at any other time than right now?”
He opened the car door and nodded at me.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Dispatch relayed your message about meeting you here,” he said. “The note said it was urgent. Can we go inside your house and chat about it?”
Again, not a surprise. “Okay, but first: you have to listen to me. You’re
going to find something in my house, but I can explain. It looks bad, but I had nothing to do with it, understand? It was this company, they’re trying to get me out of the way. They want to make it seem like I’m capable of doing terrible things, to destroy my credibility.”
Cross threw back one side of his jacket, unclipped a button on his holster, and drew his pistol.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I sat in a little room with a metal table and two plain office chairs. A mirror made up one wall, behind which I assumed Cross was standing, watching me, letting me stew. A six inch welded metal arch marked the middle of the table. Probably, that’s where they would have attached handcuffs, but they’d taken mine off already.
Thank God I’d left my fake ID back at the house earlier. Didn’t know how I’d explain that one.
Five minutes, maybe ten elapsed. I wasn’t sure because I don’t carry a watch and they’d taken my cell phone. I could have sworn I heard a clock ticking somewhere, but I didn’t see one hanging on the walls.
I wiped some remnants of fingerprinting ink on the leg of my jeans. I hadn’t been through this arrest procedure since one stupid incident in college. It’s not like it is in the movies; it’s mostly sitting around, waiting for this person to take you over here, sign this, then that person takes you over there to wait some more.
My stomach yawned since I hadn’t eaten all day. But if I let on about my discomfort, they’d use it as a tool to manipulate me. I told my stomach to shut up and kept my eyes on that welded metal arch, thinking of all the murderers and drug dealers who’d been attached to it before me. All the people who were truly bad.
The door opened behind me and Cross finally came in. He took off his sports coat, then laid it carefully on the back of a chair. He unbuttoned the bottom of his sleeves and rolled them up, keeping his eyes on me the whole time.
He pointed at my face. “Where did you get that bruise on your temple?”
“Jogging accident. Wasn’t looking where I was going, and I smacked into a stop sign.”
He nodded, then folded his hands and set them on the table. “And now, here we are. Looks like I should have written up that warrant when I had the chance.”
“They still would have killed Alan. He knew things.”
“How did you find out he’d been let out on bail this morning?”
“I didn’t. Who bailed him out?”
Cross sat at the table, sighing at me. He looked worn and tired, and I could see the markings of sweat stains poking out of his underarms.
“Aren’t you going to take out a folder with a bunch of black and white pictures and lay them out in front of me?”
He shook his head. “This isn’t a joke, Mr. Candle.”
I blushed, cursing myself. “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
“Where were you between ten o’clock this morning and noon?”
My brain froze. I didn’t want to tell him I was trying to buy a gun from a gangster on Colfax, but I had to tell him something. Something he’d believe.
His eyebrows raised. “Do you not know where you were?”
“I was downtown.”
“And what were you doing downtown?”
“Buying some weed from a guy I know on Colfax.”
“You were buying marijuana? Why didn’t you just drop by a dispensary?”
“It’s cheaper to buy it from this guy. Taxes, you know.”
“So, if we were to search your house or your car, would we find a baggie stashed somewhere?”
“No. I changed my mind and threw it out on the way home. At the dumpster behind McDonalds. It was crappy weed anyway. Not worth the money.”
Cross took a notepad from his shirt pocket and clicked his pen. “This guy you bought it from, what’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“You referred to him as a guy you know, but you don’t know his name? Does that seem strange to you?”
I swallowed hard and moved my shaking hands under the table. Cross was too good at this. “I said I know him, but it’s not like I go over there to watch Broncos games and we shoot the shit. He’s got a tiny little apartment above a boarded up bar near the Tattered Cover bookstore. I go in, buy my weed, then I get out.”
Cross scribbled notes. “If that’s true, then why did it take you two hours to do it?”
“Traffic.”
He scribbled more. “Take me through the timeline, please.”
“I could do that, but that’s not what’s important. I can tell you exactly who killed Alan and hung him from my stairs.”
He set the pen on the table. “I’m not interested in your theories. We have a dead body in your house, Mr. Candle. I’m only interested in what happened.”
An ache swelled in the back of my head. I ignored his just the facts routine and pressed on. Didn’t care anymore. I wanted the truth out, and Dad’s and Susan’s warnings weren’t going to scare me. No more dead bodies. No more carnage. This would stop here and now.
“It was IntelliCraft, the company I used to work for.”
Cross glanced at the mirror, at whoever was standing back there. “And why would this company you used to work for kill your neighbor and hang him in your house?”
“To slow me down. To destroy my sanity. I don’t know. Who bailed out Alan this morning?”
“I don’t know, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you that. It’s not your concern.”
“I know things about them that could get a lot of people in trouble.”
He leaned forward and flashed his eyes at me. “Mr. Candle, before you say anything else, I think I should advise you that this conversation is being recorded. You’ll want to think carefully about what comes out of your mouth next.”
My pulse skyrocketed. That seemed like a warning, and maybe despite all my vetting of Cross and his seemingly legit background, maybe he did work for IntelliCraft. But, if this conversation were being recorded, then he couldn’t stop me from saying what I needed to say.
No more gag order.
“They’ve been selling software and hardware to terrorist countries for two decades. Weapons guidance systems, specifically.”
He breathed out, flashing a glance at the mirror. “That’s a mighty serious accusation.”
“It’s true.”
“And I assume you have evidence of this?”
“I did, but someone destroyed it.” Susan, specifically, but I didn’t feel the need to bring that complication into the conversation.
He sat back and chewed on the inside of his cheek for about thirty seconds. “So, you don’t have any proof to back up your wild theory?”
“Not yet, I don’t.”
“Well, then, you’re in a bit of a poorly leveraged position, aren’t you?”
***
Two hours later, they let me go. Despite the fact that Alan’s body had been discovered in my house, they didn’t have enough evidence to charge me. He’d been killed by blunt force trauma to the head, and the murder weapon had been found in his house. No prints.
But my real saving grace had happened halfway through the conversation, when a cop came in and handed Cross some photographs. Traffic cameras had put me at Speer and Colfax right about the estimated time of death. So, Cross let me go, but only after another hour of going over my statement about the events that led to Wyatt Green’s death. Again.
And Cross still wouldn’t tell me anything about an FBI investigation into IntelliCraft, or if one even existed. His strange looks and ominous warnings suggested that he had some secret squared away. I’m sure that, like everyone else I knew, there was a good chance he wasn’t who he said he was. Probably on IntelliCraft’s payroll, just as Shelton had been.
No matter what, one more person had died and I was nowhere closer to exposing the truth. Another body added to the count, and for what? How many more would have to die before it was all over?
I felt for Alan’s parents. They’re kidnapped, held captive in a warehouse somewhere, the
n their son is arrested, and finally, he’s murdered. All in the span of a few weeks. If I made it out of this alive, I’d have to visit them. Tell them their son wasn’t a bad man.
If only Detective Cross had worked with me, I’m sure I could have proven that whoever bailed Alan out of jail was tied to IntelliCraft somehow. Maybe Frank Thomason himself had put up the money. It didn’t make sense for Susan and my dad to kill him just to scare me, so it had to have been the company.
I sat out in front of the police station in the late afternoon as Rodrick pulled into the lot. I could see the look of worry on his face as soon as he parked.
I slid into the passenger seat of his car. “Thank you.”
“Sure thing, buddy. Everything okay?” he said.
“My next door neighbor turned up dead. The police thought I did it, but I didn’t. It’s all cleared up now.”
“Tucker Candle, you lead the most chaotic and fascinating life of anyone I’ve ever met. It’s not even a contest.”
I wanted to laugh or make a joke, but I was too tired. My head felt cloudy. Too much swirling around, too many questions. “Maybe so. But I’m ready for it to all be over. I don’t want this chaotic life anymore.”
“You deserve better than this.”
I thought about it, and I wasn’t so sure. I could trace some of what had happened directly to my actions, or my inactions. “Rod, am I a terrible person?”
He frowned, swiveling in his seat to look at me. “Why would you say that?”
“Grace’s sister thinks I’m terrible because I keep running away from Grace. I’d like to say that all this stuff I’m doing is for her, but Janine’s right. I abandoned her to go to Texas to save a man I’d never met, and it didn’t even matter. I should have stayed home with my wife.”
He chewed on this for a few seconds. “I don’t think you’re a terrible person. I think you’re doing what you have to do. I visited her a couple times last week while you were in Texas. She’s a lot stronger than you think.”
I hadn’t known he’d made house calls to see Grace. “I appreciate you looking out for her. I do. I feel like I’m struggling to keep my head above water all the time. I’m not cut out for this kind of cloak and dagger stuff, and it’s asking so much of her to stay patient while I’m out here trying to fight a losing battle.”
